Getaway Car [HS]

Chapter Fifteen

Harley wakes slowly.

Cradled in the warmth of a plush down comforter, the sleep eases off of her in incremental doses. It starts with the distant sound of a door opening and closing. That's the first thing to stir her in her sleep. Her heavy eyelids flutter at the disturbance caused by someone in the other room, then, it's the scent coming off of the pillowcase that rouses her.

Vanilla, tobacco, and the fresh laundry detergent used to clean the soft white fabric she burrows her face into. It's something that signifies comfort to her. It signifies Harry, and, surprisingly, the slow realization of the person whose bed she's in doesn't startle her. As her behavior while she was rolling at the nightclub last night proved, Harry's presence has a way of soothing her, and it's no surprise that waking in his bed does too. Knowing that she went home with him rather than the man who drugged her settles her nerves as she blinks her eyes open to his dark room.

Blackout shades are drawn over the floor-to-ceiling window taking up the wall to the right of the bed. Daylight is shut out by it, allowing her to adjust to the darkness around her and take in the sight of his bedroom.

It's reduced to the bare bones of what's necessary to survive. A bed, two side tables, a dresser, a closet, and nothing to decorate the walls to allow her a pathway to his well-guarded mind. It's what she should have expected from someone like him. The inner sanctum of his mind wouldn't look too different from this bare, seemingly untouched bedroom, she thinks. He's often detached from everything. From reality in order to justify his crimes, from the world, from her—it makes sense that his home would reflect that.

She stretches out her limbs beneath the heavy comforter laid atop her body and groans in satisfaction at the feeling of her skin sliding against the sheets as she flexes her sore feet.

That's when she realizes what she's wearing.

A quick look beneath the comforter shows her wearing nothing but one of his t-shirts and a clean pair of his underwear. After seeing her bare legs standing out against the white bed, she lifts her head to search the room for her clothes. It takes longer than she's proud of, though it could be blamed on the drugs, to find her mini dress and underwear folded neatly on top of his dresser.

And, of course, the passing thought of having drugs in her system leads her to the inevitable.

Last night. Despite never truly leaving, it comes back to her all at once. It hits as abruptly as the high had come on in the hallway.

The memories, starting with the drive over and ending with being carried out into the night in Harry's arms, are coming back to her. What surprises her most as she pours over every accessible memory of the traumatic incident is that she doesn't cry. She doesn't feel the wet tracks of tears running down her cheeks yet. Instead, before the tears can fall and usher in a hysterical madness, she notices a familiar itch coming back to life inside of her. An itch she promised not to scratch again.

She forces herself out of his bed the second she feels it, opting to focus on her surroundings rather than the twisted need to hurt herself for relief from yesterday's pain. She can't think about the fact that she was drugged, that she saw Peter, that she wants to cut herself, or, perhaps most maddeningly of them all, that Harry reacted the way he did.

Her footsteps are silent on the floor below when she swings her legs over the side of the bed to stand. A short trip around the bedroom confirms what she already assumed from her brief analysis earlier: this must be the cleanest room she has ever set foot in. Not a single article of clothing litters the parquet floor, nor does a molecule of dust rest on a surface. It's damn near sterile in here, and she has never found a bedroom this unsettling before. Does he not put up posters, or pictures, or leave his favorite things out for himself to look at? She has a difficult time imagining anyone living here, but, of the entire human population, she figures he fits it best.